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15 Apr 2024
One of the major issues in building the Internet or any large network is internetworking. If you have two networks built and run by different entities, how do you connect them together? The Internet addressed this problem in two ways. One is by layering, so that consistent upper layers can hide differences in lower layers. (In my office I have devices using wired Ethernet, fiber, wifi, and 5G, all looking the same at the Internet level.) Another is gateways, connecting things togeher and translating the differences, which to some extent is what fiber modems and routers do. But the Internet is hardly the first time these questions have arisen.
23 Mar 2024
Jay Fink had an interesting little business. If you lived in California, you could give him access to your email account, he'd look through the spam folder for spam that appeared to violate the state anti-spam law, and give you a spreadsheet and a file of PDFs. You could then sue the spammers, and if you won, you'd give Fink part of the money as his fee. Last July the state of California told him to get a Private Investigator license or close his business. Since the license requires 6,000 hours of training in fields having nothing to do with looking at spam (e.g., arson investigation), Fink closed his business and sued the state. In January, each side filed motions and last week the judge issued the first significant order in the case. Fink didn't entirely win, but pretty close.
22 Jan 2024
Jay Fink had an interesting little business. If you lived in California, you could give him access to your email account, he'd look through the spam folder for spam that appeared to violate the state anti-spam law, and give you a spreadsheet and a file of PDFs. You could then sue the spammers, and if you won, you'd give Fink part of the money as his fee. While the federal CAN SPAM law largely preempts state laws, it lets states add their own penalties for fraudulent or misleading spam. California is one of the few states with a usable law, and one of the few that lets spam recipients sue in small claims court. The spammers tend to pay to settle rather than going to court (because they are pretty sure they'd lose) so this was a way to make life more difficult for the spammers, paid for by the spammers. Last July, the state of California shut him down, saying that the stuff he was doing needed a Private Investigator (PI) license. The license is quite expensive and requires 6,000 hours of training in a field like arson investigation or insurance adjustment. Fink thought this was ridiculous, since none of the training would have anything to do with looking for spam, and the requirements were grossly excessive for what he did. He sued the state, supported by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm. Last week the parties filed the first substantive exchange, in which the state moved to dismiss the case, and Fink's lawyers said not so fast.
08 Jan 2024
18 Dec 2023
The Internet Archive has a program they call Controlled Digital Lending (CDL). They have scanned a whole lot of physical books, put the books in storage, and then lend out the scans, ensuring that each scan is lent to one person at a time. Publishers don't like this, sued several years ago, and the Archive lost thoroughly in April. The judge ruled on a motion for summary judgment without a trial, which means the judge believed there was no significant dispute about the facts. He found that CDL was not fair use, the scans were a substitute for the paper books, and the Archive lost. Unsurprisingly, the Archive has appealed the ruling. This looked to me to be a long shot. The appeal is to the Second Circuit which decided the Google Books case. Their decision said that Google's scanning is OK because they don't provide the full contents of the books, but do other stuff that makes it transformative. Since the Archive does provide the full contents of the books, they're out of luck. The Archive appealed in September but until recently the only activity has been routine stuff like which lawyers will be representing whom On Friday they filed their brief laying out the legal theory of the appeal, and I have to say it's surprisingly strong. They say that the judge misunderstood what CDL is, that he got all four prongs of the fair use analysis wrong, and that there are significant disagreements about facts that prevent summary judgment.
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